When our daughter visited Bali with a friend last year she was also in a motorbike crash. I guess a lot of people think it will be fun to ride a motorbike in Bali. Her hand was badly cut and needed stitches. We had to transfer the cash to her friend's debit account so it could be paid out on the spot, but once that was done the ER docs did a great job sewing her up, and $700 seemed like a hell of a bargain compared to what a visit to the ER and some stitches probably would have cost in the U.S.
What travel insurance really means
41–50 of 186 posts
Re: What travel insurance really means
#42[deleted]
Re: What travel insurance really means
#43Earlier quoted context omitted.
in most cases, they'll opt to have you repatriated for care in your home country. Yes; and that's a shitty thing to require when the person has a broken rib and a detached fingertip and is 20h+ away from the home country. The problem wasn't that he didn't know the policy, it was the policy itself.
Certainly it was partly his fault for not reading the policy.
He did read the policy. He also read the 94 page medical manual they later sent him, which presumably wasn't in the original policy. He found the reason in all those pages of text why he was eligible for getting his costs covered, and they still replied with:
> “This is a general exclusion and doesn’t apply to you specifically. Our decision still stands with curtailment. No further medical input needed.
Why do you feel that he shares any part of the blame here? Why do you expect him to be an expert in reading and interpreting insurance policies in the middle of a medical emergency?
Re: What travel insurance really means
#44This is horrifying. Glad you made it out okay. Insurance companies always felt like a Govt sanctioned scam. These companies are the real scammers that thrive by finding grey areas and loop holes to shirk their responsibility. Making this mandatory is just the government whoring its citizens out to these companies. I cant imagine how I'd have dealt with a $20000 hole in my pocket. Come to think of it, I should serious…
While you should certainly have a healthy savings account for emergencies, these stories are always the exception. Thousands upon thousands of claims are filed every day, and they aren't ending up with this level of pain.
Heck, when I had a tree fall on my house, the mortgage company was a bigger pain in the arse than the insurance company was to deal with. They came out, took some pictures, asked me to get a quote to fix it, and sent me a check in the mail.
Similar thing happened to me with car insurance. And, while I ended up paying more than I would have liked to get my gal bladder removed, that was largely because I bought a high deductible health insurance plan and knew that was a potential outcome.
Re: What travel insurance really means
#45Earlier quoted context omitted.
in most cases, they'll opt to have you repatriated for care in your home country. Yes; and that's a shitty thing to require when the person has a broken rib and a detached fingertip and is 20h+ away from the home country. The problem wasn't that he didn't know the policy, it was the policy itself.
Certainly it was partly his fault for not reading the policy.
On one side: a gigantic company with a fleet of lawyers whose full time job is to write policies that are as advantageous as possible for the company.
On the other side: a random non-expert who needs some insurance, among a thousand other things going on in their life.
How much fault should assign to the second one?
Re: What travel insurance really means
#46From his telling, the company was not very communicative when he contacted them, but, fundamentally, saying he should fly back to the UK for treatment and they'll cover the flight does not seem unreasonable.
He complains that "unless you are injured so horrifically that you cannot survive another moment without life saving surgery, odds are they’ll just tell you to fly home and have the surgery for free." But, to me, this is exactly what travel insurance is (which is why it's so cheap). Expecting fancy Singaporean hospitals unless it is strictly necessary seems totally unreasonable.
If they were not so communicative, he also basically decided to not get back to them on the vital "is he fit to fly?" issue for a few days (he had been OK to fly to Singapore after all), until after the surgery. There were a few days to go until the surgery, so that was enough time to get him back to the UK. Also, why hadn't he gotten in touch before? He texts pictures to friends, books flights, &c, and does not call the insurer or even ask somebody else to call on his behalf?
For what it's worth, I think he made the right decision in getting treatment in Singapore at his own expense, but that was still his decision.
Re: What travel insurance really means
#47Question for those who might know about this: If I find myself in a similar situation as in this article, is there some sort of "insurance professional handler" laywer kind of guy you can hire so that he does what is necessary and who knows all the traps, so that you have good chances of being covered?
This person is in the UK, I can't speak for the UK but in the US you can contact the Department of Insurance for your state if you have issues with insurance companies. They are responsible for regulating insurance companies and making sure their actions are within the bounds of the law.
I meant during the thing. Like you don't talk to the police without a lawyer present, maybe you shouldn't talk to the insurer without a professional present.
Re: What travel insurance really means
#48I'm somewhat sympathetic to the insurance company here. Travel insurance is there to take care of emergency medical care. It's not for long term care. The guy clearly didn't want to travel because he preferred to be cared in Singapore. From his e-mail: >I intend to stay in Asia for some time yet. I did consider travelling home to have surgery in the UK, but the medical Service here is excellent and I'm already schedu…
Yeah, it's unclear to me why he didn't ask for/demand coverage for the emergency finger-attaching procedure. In the article, he skipped the details on that in terms of supposedly having to inform them beforehand for an emergency procedure.
That emergency procedure, not the follow-up, seems more in line with what the plan is designed to cover.
Re: What travel insurance really means
#49There's no way a 5 day hospital stay in Bali (excluding surgery) costs $22,000. That sounds way too crazy. No way the locals can pay for something like that.
Re: What travel insurance really means
#50When our daughter visited Bali with a friend last year she was also in a motorbike crash. I guess a lot of people think it will be fun to ride a motorbike in Bali. Her hand was badly cut and needed stitches. We had to transfer the cash to her friend's debit account so it could be paid out on the spot, but once that was done the ER docs did a great job sewing her up, and $700 seemed like a hell of a bargain compared t…
I'm very suspicious that the article mentions $22,000 hospital bed cost for 5 nights stay (excluding surgery).